The cougar holds the Guinness record for the animal with the greatest number of names, with over 40 in English alone. In 1774, Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon converted cuguacu ara to cuguar, which was later modified to "cougar" in English.
Cuguacu ara was then adopted by John Ray in 1693. Marcgrave's rendering was reproduced in 1648 by his associate Willem Piso. In the 17th century, Georg Marcgrave named it cuguacu ara. The word cougar is borrowed from the Portuguese çuçuarana, via French it was originally derived from the Tupi language. In particular, the eastern cougar population is considered to be mostly locally extinct in eastern North America since the early 20th century, with the exception of the isolated Florida panther subpopulation. Intensive hunting following European colonization of the Americas and ongoing human development into cougar habitat has caused populations to decline in most parts of its historical range. Fatal attacks on humans are rare but increased in North America as more people entered cougar habitat and built farms. It is reclusive and mostly avoids people. While large, it is not always the apex predator in its range, yielding prey it has killed to American black bears, grizzly bears and wolf packs. Individual home ranges depend on terrain, vegetation and abundance of prey. Cougars are territorial and live at low population densities. Primary food sources are ungulates, particularly deer, but it also hunts smaller prey, such as rodents. It is an ambush predator that pursues a wide variety of prey. The cougar is largely solitary by nature and considered both nocturnal and crepuscular, although daytime sightings do occur. It prefers habitats with dense underbrush and rocky areas for stalking but also lives in open areas. It is an adaptable, generalist species occurring in most American habitat types. It is the most widely distributed large wild terrestrial mammal in the Western Hemisphere. Its range spans from the Canadian Yukon to the southern Andes in South America. The cougar ( Puma concolor) ( / ˈ k uː ˌ ɡ ər/, KOO-gər), also known as the puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther, is a large cat native to the Americas. Cougar range (without recent confirmations across northern Canadian territories, eastern U.S.
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